United National Party

The United National Party (UNP) is a conservative political party in Sri Lanka that was founded on 6 September 1946 by Don Stephen Senanayake. The party was founded by amalgamating right-leaning pro-dominion parties from the majority Sinhalese community and the minority Tamil and Muslim communities, and it represented the business community and the landed gentry. However, Senanayake also adopted populist policies that made the party accepted in the grassroots level, and many landless people were relocated to fertile dry zones, where they contributed to increased agricultural production. In 1952, Senanayake died, and his son Dudley Senanayake became the new party leader. At this point, center-left UNP leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike split from the UNP and founded the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, a rival social democratic party. The party came to favor a more neoliberal market-oriented economy, and it was right-leaning, pro-capitalist, and liberal-conservative. The UNP became one of the two main parties in the country, rivalling the SLFP.